You'd think the Alabama Republican party would be planning to go all-out for its election-night celebration. After all, it seems a near-certainty that the end result of Tuesday's voting will be that, for the first time since the late nineteenth century, no Democrat will hold a statewide elected office in Alabama. But instead the state party's hosting a simple affair, just outside Birmingham, at Hoover Tactical Firearms. The shooting range's twelve pistol lanes and eight rifle lanes will be available from 5 till 8 p.m.. Cubby's Deli will be serving up Heart Attacks and Widowmakers. The Mistress of Ceremonies will be Amie Beth Dickinson Shaver, Former Miss Alabama 1994.*

The Alabama race that's getting national attention is the contest for Chief Justice. The GOP standardbearer is former Chief Justice Roy Moore — the self-same Roy Moore who, in 2003, was removed as the state's highest judicial officer after refusing to follow an order from a federal judge directing him to remove the large statue of the Ten Commandments he had placed in the rotunda of the federal judicial building in the middle of the night. The state's Democratic party has been under siege for some time now.

After struggling to find a credible candidate to face Moore, Democrats finally settled on Judge Robert S. Vance, Jr., a respected trial judge from Jefferson County. Vance is the son of the late Judge Robert S. Vance, Sr., a federal judge who, in 1989, became the third federal judge in the twentieth century to be assassinated, when he was killed by a mail bomb sent to his Birmingham home. Vance has been out-raising Moore almost three-to-one. Moore has the support of Chuck Norris and, possibly, Moses. You make the call.

But who the Republicans really have in the crosshairs is Alabama's last Democratic statewide officeholder, Public Service Commission President Lucy Baxley. Baxley, the ex-wife of former Lt. Gov. Bill Baxley, served two terms as state treasurer before becoming the first woman elected lieutenant governor in Alabama in 2002. She lost the 2006 race for governor and then made a comeback with the PSC presidency in 2010. But the 74-year-old Baxley hasn't been getting around too well since her Thanksgiving stroke back in '06, while her challenger, current PSC Commissioner Twinkle Andress Cavanaugh, is just plain getting around. Earlier this year, Twinkle was hot on the campaign trail when a Montgomery cop ticketed her for driving with a suspended license, driving without evidence of liability insurance and failing to stop at a stop sign. Two days later she had what she called another "small driving accident," while she explained the suspended license was "a routine administrative matter" involving a car she "tapped" a year earlier.

*This post has been corrected to remove a quote that was inaccurately attributed to Amie Beth Shaver, Miss Alabama 1994. We regret the error.